A Jazz Age themed wedding at the Lyric Fine Arts Theatre wowed guests

This story appears in Birmingham magazine's July Weddings 2016 Issue. Subscribe today!

Anyone who has been in Birmingham the last few years knows The Lyric Theatre downtown has waited long to see its marquee light up again. But there was no one more anxiously awaiting it than Wade Smith and Carrie Beth Hill, who had been hoping for two years to get married on its stage. While the theatre took its time getting ready for its big day, Carrie and Wade had just four months to plan from the day they got the green light from Brant Beene (executive director of Birmingham Landmarks, which owns the Lyric).

Carrie and Wade met four years ago at a party at Wade's loft downtown as a part of a rotating potluck called the Downtown Social Club. "I had moved downtown and really wanted to be a part of it. It took me a year to get on the list," Carrie says, "and his was the first party I went to." As Carrie recalls, Wade tried to sell her storage at 2nd Avenue Storage, which he owns. (Wade maintains he was just telling her about it in case she needed it.) After subsequent potluck evenings, Wade started walking Carrie home the few blocks to her own loft, and before long the friendly gesture turned romantic. "He was trying to date me," Carrie says, "but I didn't know. After that first kiss, then I knew!" Two years later, on a trip to Ronda, Spain, the couple got engaged at a beautiful scenic overlook.

With the couple's passion for Birmingham and downtown life already a part of their love story, getting married somewhere in the surrounding environs was the most natural choice. The Lyric was always their desired location, and, on March 19, 2016, they were the first couple to say "I do" in the restored space. Carrie and Wade hatched a plan to make their own "damsel in distress" silent movie to show before the ceremony. (At 15 minutes long, it was about 15 times as long as their actual exchange of vows!) Before Carrie and Wade took the stage, the lights went down and their film debuted to the surprise and delight of their guests who weren't expecting the cinematic treat. Though the gold ticket invitations designed by Salt and Paperie hinted at what was to come, the couple successfully kept that secret until the big day. In their film, Wade disguises himself as the classic villain who kidnaps Carrie and ties her to the train tracks. At the last moment, he shows up as the hero who saves her and whisks her off to marry him.

As the final frame of the film faded, Wade rushed in as if coming straight off the screen. His white dinner jacket served as a classic foil for Carrie's elaborate, corseted wedding gown that took her generous sister-in-law two months to make. "She's from Mexico and doesn't speak English, and I don't speak any Spanish, but she drew me a sketch, and I liked it," Carrie says. "That's what she wanted to do for me for my wedding gift."

Many guests also dressed to theme, arriving in period garb inspired by the fashions of the '20s, '30s, and '40s. More than 600 of the couple's family and friends came from nearby and as far as Texas and Michigan, including Carrie's 88-year-old grandmother who dressed up and danced the Charleston. Carrie, who has taught piano for the past 17 years, also had all of her students in attendance and enlisted them in playing ragtime tunes for the guests while they waited for the ceremony to start. Married by Wade's best friend Andrew, Wade and Carrie felt things couldn't have gone better.

"We kind of assumed things were going to go wrong, and then they didn't," Wade says. The couple credits the smooth working of "the production," as their wedding planner started calling it, to that very same person, Ann Marie Leveille of Tres Beau Weddings.

"She reined us in and also let us go. She was really good about taking anything crazy we came up with and running with it, but also creating a theme, because we could've gone really tacky," Wade says. "We'd waited so long to use the space," he says, that they had the reception in The Lyric as well. "We had the lobby and bar area, and the band and the dance floor were on the stage. We really wanted people to explore the whole theatre," he says.

And explore and enjoy they did, with entertainment from the Silvery Moon Band of Huntsville who sent 20 members instead of the five-piece band they originally promised, which surprised the couple when the curtains opened. The food, including a mac and cheese bar from The Happy Catering Company and cakes by Olexa's, and a vintage photo booth kept the revelry going for hours. A good friend of Carrie's, local artist Sarah Miller Woodall created lush, romantic floral arrangements starring Black Magic roses for the venue and Carrie's bouquet. A send-off shower of paper airplanes that Carrie and Wade made from old sheet music led to an antique getaway car waiting outside. "The car did have to be jumped off," says Wade, "my friends got behind it and started pushing it!"

For the first wedding in the Lyric since its restoration was completed, and also the "best wedding ever," as everyone in attendance told the couple, it was the culmination of a dream and the continuation of more adventures for Carrie and Wade. Their honeymoon saw them flying off to Vancouver to ski the mountains of Whistler.